Court Dismisses Accenture Leave Policy Lawsuit

May 17, 2005 (PLANSPONSOR.com) - An Accenture
employee can't sue the consulting firm over changes in its
leave of absence policies since the company partly retracted
the rule to which the employee objected.

>US District Judge Thomas Thrash of the US District
Court for the Northern District of Georgia dismissed the
lawsuit filed by Accenture employee V. Stephen Moore
because he lacked the legal standing to pursue his claims,
according to a BNA report.

>Moore charged that the consulting firm’s 2002 policy
change regarding its leave-of-absence policy violated the
Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) by cutting
benefits available to employees who had worked for the firm
for less than 10 years.

>According to Thrash’s ruling, Accenture announced
that it was changing its leave policy and the related
provisions of its health and welfare benefit plans relating
to the length of permitted leaves. Under the new policy,
those who had fewer than 10 years of service when they
started a leave were limited to being off for three
years.

>Thrash said the policy change grandfathered under
the old leave-of-absence policy employees who were on leave
of absence at the time of the announcement – effectively
giving the older workers an extra two years leave.

>Moore filed a class action suit against Accenture
and its benefit plans in October 2004, alleging the new
leave-of-absence policy violated ERISA. Moore voluntarily
withdrew the suit a day before Accenture notified the
grandfathered employees it had decided not to apply the new
policy to them.

>Thrash said he threw out Moore’s second suit because
of Accenture’s decision to partly withdraw the policy
change. “The Plaintiff’s complaint contains only
allegations of past injury caused by the imposition of the
leave of absence policy, injuries which have since been
resolved by Accenture’s decision not to apply the policy to
the employees at issue,” Thrash wrote.